Today is the first day since Lincoln, Montana that I haven’t hiked with Fearless. She went to Urgent Care and received the news, no stress fracture which is a huge praise! But she has a tendon/ligament that has been pulled or stretched and she is sidelined for a bit. We all went to Enterprise, picked up Jen’s new wheels and headed back to the trail.

The Great Basin has received a bad rap this year. But for good reason. There was little to no snow last season, and they are experiencing a massive drop in their reservoirs. Without water caches, it’s not safe to walk the Basin this year. This is a section that I gave a lot of thought to, and after the many locals that have warned us not to go, my husband who is not excited about me hiking without water for days on end, I decided to skip the Basin.

Fearless, Hogged Up and I drove through much of the Great Basin and it truly is a dry and barren desert. But even the desert has its rare beauty. We stopped along the way to check out the rock formations and mountains that surround this region.

Once we arrived on trail, we packed up and headed Sobo, just me and Hogged Up. Fearless plans to meet us along the way and hopefully she can drive the rental car to our designated spots. She plans to camp along side us! And as a caveat, she’ll provide icy cold beverages, grilled cheese sandwiches, along with fruits and fresh vegetables whenever possible. This is a win-win for us all.

Our hike today was heading up and out of the Basin and into the Aspen Groves, Pines and Sage. We had a few miles of saying goodbye to the Basin with all its grasses, rocks and pokey sage brush. The best route we could find was navigated by cairns, once again. The trail was a bit overgrown with thick ground covering.

Once we climbed above 9,000’, it was much more trail and less route finding. There were tons of hunters out scouting for their trophy deer and elk. Archery Season opened the first of September and rifle season begins soon. I saw more Trucks, ATV and Side-By-Sides than you’d find in a dealership. In fact, one of the Archers told me he’d been coming up here for years and has never seen so many hunters. I saw one big whitetail deer as I was walking through the aspens, but once he got wind of me, he scooted through the trees in a single bound! He must know it’s deer season too!

Hogged Up and I made it to camp close to 7:00pm just as Fearless was pulling in. She found her way and had cold sparkling waters and four gallons of water. Water is sparse and I didn’t see a stream, creek or spring flowing today! Even in the mountain areas, it is dry!

We set up camp, heated up dinner and pretty quickly, we all were retiring to our tents and hammock. I was pooped after our little walk today, and so was Hogged Up. She’s been off trail for over a week and the first day back is always the hardest. I’m sure she’ll be back to her normal hiking speed in no time! And I’ll be miles behind her but I’m going to relish in the meantime that I stayed up with her for the better part of the afternoon. And that’s something I can boast about for one day! Thank you Lord for giving me the strength to continue on and for answering our prayers for Fearless. You are my joy and my God.

“The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭28‬:‭7‬ ‭NIV‬‬